Scene 5 - Stormfront
This scene introduces Ben Flack, supervisor on an oil drilling platform in the Niger Delta, and starts what will become a major plot line for the story. Nigeria has been a slowly boiling kettle for years now, with rising social unrest and wide scale scavenging and looting of oil industry assets there. Security is thin, and local militias, angry at Western oil companies stripping off the wealth of the land while the people live in poverty, have been organizing stronger and more violent episodes of resistance in recent years. Added to ethnic and religious tensions in the hinterland of the country, Nigeria is fast becoming a lawless region and a major potential flash point for a conflict involving major powers.
Of course, outside interests only concern themselves with oil. Little news of the region ever filters through the pop ridden seive of the U.S. media. But when anything happens to upset the fragile balance of supply and demand on the world oil markets, a crisis can emerge like a rapidly building storm front.
